Elan awards Alzheimer’s innovation

Cutting-edge research into Alzheimer’s disease has been honoured by the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) and neuroscience-based biotechnology company Elan.

International scientists honoured for their innovation in this field are: Luciano D’Adamio, founder of Remegenix; professor Alan Kozikowski of the University of Illinois; Yung-Feng Liao, assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica; and professor Horacio Saragovi of the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Montreal.

This is the third year such awards have been given out and the scientists will receive a combined grant funding prize of $530,000 (270,000 pounds).

ADDF executive director Howard Fillit said: “The awards highlight that there are many promising and innovative drug discovery research programs for Alzheimer’s disease throughout the world.”

He added that ADDF’s collaboration with Elan meant they could continue to “increase our capability to fund these programmes”.

Elan’s own approach to treating Alzheimer’s disease is by blocking the creation or enhancing the clearance of beta amyloid in the brain.

This takes the view that beta amyloid is involved in the formation of plaque that causes the trademark disruption of thinking typical of Alzheimer’s disease.